Cache Valley Woman Arrested on Homicide Charge

Heidi Marie Rutchey was arrested Oct. 24 on one charge of criminal homicide. Rutchey's son Eli was found dead in Heidi's home on Sept. 4.

Credit Cache County Sheriff's Office

A River Heights woman is in jail on a charge of criminal homicide.

Heidi Marie Rutchey was arrested yesterday and booked into the Cache County Jail. Her son Eli Rutchey was found dead in Rutchey’s River Heights home on Sept. 4.

Rutchey admitted herself at Logan Regional Hospital on Sept. 4. Deputies responded to her home on a welfare check and found her son’s body.

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A medical examination released Oct. 18 found her son’s body was badly decomposed and revealed he had been dead for up to 10 days.

Rutchey was arraigned this afternoon in First District Court.

"We have reviewed information submitted to our office from the Cache County Sheriff's Office," said Cache County Attorney James Swink. "They've completed a thorough and comprehensive investigation which included talking to Ms. Rutchey and getting an account of what occured from her."

In a probable cause statement released by the attorney’s office, investigators say Rutchey caused her son’s death by suffocating him, and they add that Rutchey tried to take her own life with an overdose of medication.

Swink said her bail was set at $100,000 and she was scheduled for a pretrial hearing on Monday.

Eric Jungblut is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism at Utah State University.